SEO Lessons from 2014

When you work at the hardest-working internet marketing company in the mid-Atlantic, you learn a LOT. Trends and strategies can turn around in the span of a day, a week, a month. And in a company like ours, pretty much every employee is an expert on something. So if you pay attention, you glean little bits of knowledge and big bursts of inspiration that spur you to be smarter and do better.

I feel pretty lucky to be in such clever company. Here are some of the critical lessons I’ve learned about business and marketing in 2014.

Remodelers Can Rule Social Media

Remodelers, in addition to achieving celebrity status via HGTV, have a unique advantage when it comes to marketing via social media. With photos, testimonials, and educational posts, remodeling companies have the power to be incredibly adept at social media strategy. Sadly, many remodelers aren’t maximizing this opportunity.

Houzz and Pinterest are also incredibly versatile social media outlets for remodelers, especially those who do high-end work. But there’s more to being successful with these accounts than just posting some custom kitchen and landscaping photos. These platforms, which rely so heavily on visual impact, take a lot of work to bring in returns for your company. To see real benefits from Houzz and Pinterest, remodelers need to:

Engage their visitors – People post a lot of questions on remodeler photos on these sites; make sure you take the time to answer them!

Post often to keep your content fresh and attract more visitors – This includes changing your profile picture, choosing the best photos for cover shots, and adding new projects as often as you can.

Provide clear, accurate information about your company and give users a way to get in touch with you.

On Houzz, encourage your clients to post reviews of your work.

And both these sites provide data for their business users. Pinterest provides analytics and Houzz provides its Houzz Pro+ users with a dashboard full of performance stats. If you’re a remodeler, you gotta get in on this!

Mobile Is Taking Over

Not only do mobile sites convert better on phones, but Google and Bing now rank mobile-friendly sites higher than traditional sites on mobile devices. That means that if your site isn’t optimized for mobile, and your competitor’s is, the competitor’s site will rank higher when people are searching on their phones or tablets. And people are using their phones for search more than their laptops now—particularly when they are looking for local businesses, services, and products.

Call Intelligence Is Magic

“Tell us where you heard about us.” Remember that old chestnut? It sounds kind of quaint now, although it still shows up on consumer surveys. You don’t have to ask that question anymore. You can know instantly how a prospect heard about you—we have the technology! It’s called Call Intelligence Reporting (CIR).

With CIR, you start with tracked phone lines. You set up different ones for different marketing channels: direct mail, organic search, phone book; whatever you’re doing, it can be tracked with its own phone number. With specialized analytics in place, you can see how effective your marketing strategies are.

Blue Corona’s Call Intelligence has caused some of our clients to completely revamp their marketing budgets in order to invest more strategically in marketing channels with higher conversion rates. And there’s something else—our call intelligence can show you how well your customer service representatives are handling incoming leads.

There Is Life After a Google Penalty

Penguins and pandas are adorable! Unless they are punishing you with wiped-out rankings. Whenever Google launches an algorithm update—usually named after a portly little cuddler—there are websites that lose their hard-earned rankings overnight. That sounds like the end of the world, doesn’t it? Luckily, with the right Google penalty recovery specialists, it’s not.

Why do some sites get penalized after an algorithm update? It’s usually for one of two general reasons.

Your site is engaged in unethical SEO tactics that are expressly against Google’s guidelines. Sometimes business owners don’t even know their sites are doing these things (like spam link building, hidden text or links, and others) because they’ve hired someone shady to do their SEO for them. Always a bad idea. These violations result in manual penalties.

Your site has poor-quality content. Google calls content that doesn’t offer much information or authority “thin.” It means your site isn’t offering value to the user. Your site will get what’s called an algorithmic penalty for this.

Like I said, every site’s penalty is different; the same recovery strategies won’t apply to everyone. But typically, if you’re willing to do the work, you can usually recover from a Google penalty.

Learn It, Live it, Love It

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About The Author: Blue Corona is a data-driven online marketing company with offices in Gaithersburg, MD and Charlotte, N.C.
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The information on this website is for informational purposes only; it is deemed accurate but not guaranteed. It does not constitute professional advice. All information is subject to change at any time without notice. Contact us for complete details.